Your online Molokai guidebook to Hawaii As It Used To Be. Slow, inconvenient, lacking in luxury and choice, Molokai has the emptiest spectacular beaches in Hawaii, the most singular beauty, the simplest of hotels and restaurants, an historic isolated leper colony, a saint to call its own, and the most authentic Hawaiian culture.

Molokai Distances and Drive Times

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HULA SHORESat HOTEL MOLOKAI

Shortly after the Driving & Discovering Maui and Molokai guide book rolled off the presses, the Molokai Ranch shut down its operations, and the ever-improving lives of those in the West Molokai town in Maunaloa screeched to a halt. SADLY, the more controlling and militant inhabitants of Molokai have succeeded in driving yet ANOTHER major employer, provider of hope, and economy-booster from the island.

Molokai must decide rationally about providing a future for its children, which means establishing a self-sustaining economy independent of the current ideology of massive public assistance.

All of us in Hawaii have had to make difficult decisions that balance preservation with economic reality and a quality existence and future for our families. Molokai must do the same. Here is a

The restaurant at Kaupoa Beach; the tent cabins; The Lodge’s Great Room; a typical guest room; the bar and restaurant Lanai and swimming pool.

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THE BEST

-AND WORST- OF MOLOKAI

Despite its continual economic ups and downs, the folks at Driving & Discovering Molokai guidebook want to remind you that Molokai remains a wondrously unspoiled and unforgettable destination for the adventurous and unflappable visitor.

The Aina Momona Farmers’ Market is located on Kamehameha V Highway right in town next to the Bank of Hawaii, and offers an island-wide selection of fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers and beef from local growers. Open Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Ninety percent of the food is organically grown and all of it comes straight from the Friendly Isle.

The unspecial Kanemitsu Bakery cannot compare to the dozens of genuinely terrific bakeries that dot the Hawaiian Islands, such as Liliha in Honolulu or KomodaStore on Maui. Because it is the only bakery on Molokai, it has over the years ridden a wave of positive notices based on the dearth of choices that Molokai offers.

We were seated at this nearly empty place early one morning recently and were completely ignored for 25 minutes as locals were seated and immediately waited on. Our respectful requests for service were met with an icy diffidence. We are troubled that areas with sizable local populations on both Molokai and Maui have become increasingly unfriendly to caucasians. We recommend you not give your business to those who show undeserved hostility, whether it be in Hawaii, or anywhere for that matter. Aloha sure ain’t what it used to be.

WEEKENDS, as well as most weeknights, ARE A BLAST at the Hula Shores Restaurant & Bar at the totally upgraded AQUA RESORTS HOTEL MOLOKAI located right on the water just 4 miles from town.

Good food, very friendly staff and guests, and live entertainment all come together to provide an experience like none other in Hawaii. You’ll think you’ve landed on Gilligan’s Island, with extras.

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MOLOKAIMULE RIDE

The Molokai Mule Ride is surely the most exciting and unforgettable way to journey to Kalaupapa; the animals gingerly snake their way almost 1700 feet down the towering pali. It is absolutely one of Hawaii’s greatest adventures -ever- and worth every penny. Visit <www.muleride.com> for reservations and information, including tours departing from Honolulu with hotel pickup. Or call 1-800-567-7550. We got on a tour last minute due to a cancellation and the fact we snagged owner Buzzy Sproat’s personal cell phone number: 808-336-0802. Don’t tell him we gave it to you. This Google map can’t locate it exactly, but if you go directly to google.com/maps and enter “100 Kalae Hwy., Molokai Hawaii” it will show a detailed map. Just follow the map’s yellow road [Hwy 470 / Kalae Hwy.] almost to its end, and the stables will be on your left...you can’t miss ‘em.

At three miles in length, and and so wide that your legs are tired by the time you reach the water, awesome is the only word that appropriately describes it.

Notice that even though it is Sunday, the only footprints on this spectacular strand are our own, and near the shoreline, a lone horse’s. If your idea of Paradise is a beach that stretches on for miles, as wide as a football field, with not another human in sight, then head westward from the airport to Papahaku Beach Park, located on Molokai’s sunny west shore. In the 15 years we’ve been publishing the Driving & Discovering Maui and Molokai guidebook, we have come back here a dozen times or more, expecting it to be somehow changed. It never has, and we’ve never seen anyone’s footprints but our own.

The pathway leading from the parking/picnic area to the sand is seen at right.

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THE HALAWA VALLEY DRIVE

The drive from Molokai’s main town of Kealakekua eastward brings you ultimately to Halawa Valley. But just like Maui’s Road To Hana, it’s not the destination that’s the principal attraction, but the journey, although Halawa Valley is indeed an exquisite destination.

Gray crescent Halawa Bay Beach is a surfing mecca, and ruins from the 1946 tsunami can be seen overgrown with tropical vegetation. You can arrange a hike to double Moaula Falls and perhaps towering Hipuapua Falls in town at Molokai Fish and Dive. The trek takes less than an hour with remains of Hawaiian settlements and beautiful botanicals visible all along the way.

KAMALO MARSH

HALAWA VALLEY LOOKOUT

Kamalo Wharf

PU`U O HOKU RANCH

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LOOK, MA...NO FOOTPRINTS

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MOLOKAI RANCH LODGE & KAUPOA CAMP: RIP

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In its Sunday, October 23, 2011 issue, the Los Angeles Times published an article so empty and generic —about one of the most astonishingly beautiful places on earth— that it leads us to believe the author never set foot here.

This insipid and completely uninspired piece of recycled tourist brochure drivel is exactly one of the reasons why the LA Times has lost so many subscribers in recent years.

We were appalled by the publication of this highly visible feature about Molokai’s Kalaupapa settlement that reads to us like a compilation of gathered references, rather than any sort of first hand report. Just getting to Kalaupapa is so mind-boggling beautiful, challenging, and adventurous, that for any writer to completely neglect to even mention the heart-thumping journey it takes to reach it is beyond preposterous.

We have serious doubts that this writer even visited Kalaupapa at all, and not just because the “sandy white beach” she describes isn’t at all white. There is so much breathtaking beauty and majesty at Kalaupapa, all of it absolutely and inexplicably ignored by her, that an injustice to the awesome spectacle and wonder, as well as the history of the place, has been committed by the Times.

The Times’ companion pieces on Disney’sAulanidebacle, a hideous architectural blight upon leeward Oahu, and Kauai’s far-more-interesting-than-reported movie industry are just as poorly presented. The Times has squandered priceless space that could have greatly benefitted our Hawaii economy. Hawaii, not to mention Los Angeles Times’ readers, deserve far better than this.